"Spartacan revolt wargaming sources..." Topic

Any ancients rule books have scenarios that cover this revolt?

There's the WAB supplement. I haven't got it myself but they have a good reputation for background info (I've got Vlad which is superb and I've never played WAB in my life).

The WAB supplement is very good, even if you don't play that system.

For ALL the classical accounts of Spartacus' revolt collected together, look for Brent D. Shaw's "Spartacus and the Slave Wars" (2001) Note that information is patchy and often contradictory – all from "the other side" and much, much later than the events themselves.

Wargames Illustrated will have an article on the last months of the revolt in WI 300 (I believe), written by myself. Scenarios are included.

Seconding the recommendation on the WAB supplement (even if, like me, WAB isn't your game) …

As MJS suggests, _all the information we have on this could be writtten on a postage stamp (and even then isn't 'fact' as corroborated by multiple sources) – so a good deal of interpolation is required …

The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss is a good read, but there's no more 'fact' to be gleaned by reading lots of text books on this topic.

Phil

As the Strauss book points out, we know so little about the battles, in some cases we're not even sure where they took place.

For the WAB book, just be wary of the Late Republican list which isn't a Third Servile War list but attempts, I guess, to be a catch-all list for the period and not for the particular conflict.

Heck, we don't even know how many battles there were.

Spartacus defeated Roman forces, ranging from scratch expeditions of just-raised recruits to full consular armies. But the details are very sketchy indeed.

Several of the Roman sources give him a lot more praise than you'd expect of a slave leading slave rebels against legal Roman authority and the proper order of society (etc).

My view is that the best comparison with Spartacus is Hannibal, both in terms of where they operated and what they accomplished. Hannibal had a far smaller army, but it was a real army; Spartacus made the best he could out of field slaves, shepherds and probably very large numbers of women and children.

Thanks all. Have added named books to my wish list. Btw, does anyone have any experience with the Osprey volume on the topic?